My latest visit bought back so many memorable milestones, I lined up to start a marathon outside the Pendleton Round up,a Rodeo stadium I guess with huge grandstands towering over a fast flowing shallow river, maybe a creek is a more appropriate description ? this was to be day 2 of the Mainly Marathons North West series on Sept 3rd, the previous day I had dragged myself rounds the same course for 50km followed by a 5km race as a warm down !! Today was just to be the classic 26.2 mile distance that the Queen had kindly given us on 24th July 1908 leaving Windsor castle at 2.30pm that day heading for London's White City Stadium.
Sept 3rd is for me an historic day on that day in 1995 I first set foot on US soil, whilst not as dramatic as Christopher Colombus or my countrymen aboard the Mayflower it was a day that would change how I looked at life, the world & many different perspectives, It wasn't quite as dramatic as the movies but it was just as exciting. I had gotten married the day before & found myself on honeymoon in Myrtle Beach, SC, a place we had picked at Random on a map !! that first week on US soil saw Cal Ripken break Lou Gehrig's Iron man streak of consecutive baseball games & was inspirational just to watch on TV (that's the reason why i my baseball number when i played was number 8 & why when given a choice of race numbers to wear number 8 is my preference).
A few days later I found myself back in Washington state somewhere I had first visited 16 years earlier & historical part of the US for me. Back in Sept 2011 I headed out to stay in Seattle with a penfriend (remember those days when chatting to someone overseas was a once a month experience & a letter dropping on your doormat ?) just prior to my trip another penfriend had invited me to North Hollywood & with my Seattle penfriend having to work I though why not take in 3 days in the sunshine state ? Sept 10th took me down from SeaTac to Burbank airport to meet a lady possibly called Barbara,the fact that I'm struggling to remember her name shows just how memorable that experience was !!! I'm an easy going guy who gets on with most people I'm pretty laid back but we were polar opposites on just about every subject, i actually got the impression she was looking for a stereotypical British banker (I did work in Banking at the time) & also got the impression she was a bit of a goldigger looking for a moneybags British banker which I certainly wasn't.(i was single having split up from my first wife almost 2 years previously) That day we met was Sept 10th & I still remember watching Monday Night Football that night & Ed McCaffrey of the Broncos having his leg broken. the following day is possibly one of the most remembered days not just in US history but world history & we all know why. I found myself feeling alone, along way from home & wondering how I was going to get back to Seattle & indeed back to London ? the next couple of days were long solemn ones, Disney & Universal studios were closed & I was just trying to find a way home. The airports were closed, I tried booking a train & they were full so the evening of Wednesday 12th September saw me board a Greyhound bus & head North up Interstate 5 on a 33 hour Road trip arriving back in Seattle in the early hours of Friday 14th September. I got to see the bus stations of LA, Fresno, Stockton, Eugene, Portland, Tacoma & finally the old bus station in Seattle before it moved down to near the ballpark in 2014.
That Friday turned out to be memorable too, I went for a late brunch with my penfriend at a dinner up Near Green Lake in Seattle & by chance we bumped into a friend of hers in the parking lot who came back inside to chat, 3 years later that girl in the parking lot became my second wife & subsequently my second ex wife 11 years later.
My running always keeps bringing me back to the USA, I have spent time in all the US states except for Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri & Arizona (I have run in 40 of them).
This year has been a rather mad year for me in the US - it started out with the furthest West I have ever been on the beautiful Hawaiian Island of Kaua'i a part of the world I could only ever dream of visiting as a child watching Jack Lord repeat the Iconic line "Book 'em Dano" & a few years later watching a mustachioed fella roaring round in his bosses Red Ferrari - I'm sure i wasn't annoying doing my best ba ba ba ba ba ba to the ventures classic theme some from the 70's show for 2 weeks before flying out !! It was horrible there eating breakfast on the beach watching the sun come up with a cup of tea - honestly horrible !!!!
March took me out to run in 5 different states on the "Dustbowl" series & if you thought I was annoying humming the Hawaii 5-0 theme for weeks that was nothing compared to me belting out the Tony Christie classic as we would be flying in to Amarillo before marathons in Texas, Oklahoma (another cue for a song from my mothers favourite musical !) Kansas (where the songs in my head were a mix of Toto classics & Wayward Son both for obvious reasons !!) & on to Colorado, I had been to Colorado in 2013 in the hope of running the Boulder Vale marathon which was cancelled due to flooding, the upside was getting to see Peyton Manning in the flesh on Monday Night Football destroy the Raiders. The final day of the series took me to Clayton New Mexico & for my homework in preparation I had watched all 6 seasons of Breaking Bad over the course of the previous 5 weeks, every time I saw an old motor home (RV) a wry smile came across my face :)
May would see me tackle 7 marathons in 8 days starting in Vermont, the trip started in Boston in the pouring rain watching the local Celtics eliminated from the NBA playoff in Cheers, I got lost leaving the bar & ended up doing 2 miles of walking in the rain when my accommodation was a mere quarter of a mile away across Boston Common. The following day I headed out for a few miles along the waterfront before hitting Dunkin' Donuts on Boyslton street - perhaps the most iconic street in the marathon running world ? later that day my friend Donna picked me up & we took a leisurely drive up to Burlington Vermont taking in breweries on the way in MA, CT,NH & VT !! I awoke the following day to news that my son Owen had a seizure hours after arriving in Seattle with his mother, the next few hours were traumatic, i readied myself for the possibility of having to fly out West but thankfully the ambulance crew had got things under control & within 12 hours he was eating ice cream with grandpa showing no ill effects & it would seem a lack of sleep & dehydration was the cause. After a lovely run round Vermont ( a race I really would recommend) I headed back to Logan airport to fly to Chicago to meet my buddy Nick from the UK & head out for races in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin & Minnesota plus a surprising extra race my mate had found in North East Philadelphia before heading home for a glorious English summer (June was wonderful by UK standards 32 degrees which i reckon is about 90 F ?)
My next US trip was my most recent one taking me to the North West, the running for the most part was replaced by walking & talking with so many great folks i have met over the years - Dee Dee very kindly chauffeured me from race to hotel to bar - repeat x 5, 2am unable to sleep gotta love jetlag.
Four trips done taking in races in 19 different states, 24 races in total (I only ran 20 marathons last year) with 2 trips to go taking in 16 more races across 12 more states, typing that I have realised I will have run 40 marathons in the US in 2017, the most I have ever run in a year in total anywhere on the planet is 30 (I have 10 other races in Europe too this year) really not sure how those numbers got so out of control especially considering I didn't run in Feb & only ran once in July !!
Next stop "Almost heaven" West Virginia.
right now to try & sleep ?
Keep on Running
Foxy x
